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Monday, September 2, 2013

"Way of the Warrior" sneak preview

Hello to all!

I know it's not the novella that you've been promised, but here is a sneak peak into one of the battle sequences of "Way of the Warrior". This sneak peak was available last month to subscribers of my newsletter. Please e-mail zero@apocalypsedesigns.com if you'd like to join. Thank you!

Note: If you thought "The Throne of Ao" had over-the-top action, wait until you see gods and goddesses of Ao in action.

“Where are we going?”

“The front lines. Are you ready for battle?”

Pure energy heeded her call as Ascalon appeared from the air, dropping into her hand, and she smiled in anticipation, “Always.”

At least, she thought she was. But Hope was unprepared for the Hell through the portal. Immediately, she felt immense pressure as they settled on the alien planet followed by the warmth of Rick’s magicks enveloping her.

A personal atmosphere she realized. She could see why. The hellscape burned in front of her. In the distance, twisting, shapeless monsters ravaged the world itself, but they were no longer on her world.

Still, there were some familiar sights. Familiar, but unwelcome. She pointed at the gleaming, metallic Olympia in the distance. Weapons of magick and energy could be seen pouring out from the Olympia against the shapeless monsters. “Galateans!” she screamed.

Acres of revolting abominations lay between them and the Olympia. “They’re on our side here,” Rick said calmly.

“You’re kidding.” She looked sidelong at her companion and was astonished to see the spectral forms of the Seven Archmagi circling her friend. Each specter manifested its own magickal field and was visibly chanting even though no sound reached her.

“Brace yourself! This is what our planet would be like if it were not for the Aegis protecting it. Without us, this is what our planet will be like. We’re going to fight through to the Olympia and relieve the galts.”

“You’re not kidding?” Hope jested one last time before they began.

She dismissed Ascalon and pulled Gugnir out with the same motion. She spun the spear quickly before arresting its movement with the palm of her hand. The crack of her spear’s passage through what passed for an atmosphere on the alien planet focused her and pointed her at the enemy.

Magick!

Not just skill and power. The magick of her inheritance; of her godhood. Magick to fight against the nightmares of reality. Magick to destroy the demon abominations.

Pure power filled her and exploded on her enemies. She was a nova. I am my mother’s daughter! I am the Child of the Sun!

“I am the Sun!” She rocketed across the battlefield to engage the abominations, throwing Gugnir mid-air to pin one of the things to the ground. She cheered inwardly as the explosion of its impact enveloped dozens of the lesser creatures.

Ascalon appeared in her hand as she weaved in and out of the snapping, biting heads at the end of a sea of tentacles. The heads told her the next thing she would kill was this dark, twisted cousin of a hydra.

Or maybe the mother of all hydra, Hope thought as she used the thing’s own necks to race up towards the sun, pole-vaulting even higher when she reached the head.

Divine energy manifested into holy flame as her arc through the air peaked. Millions of tiny heads streamed out at her from the hydra only to be annihilated in her fiery wake.

She sank her spear deep inside one of the larger necks. The head at the end of the neck was as large as an entire adult dragon. She dropped down suddenly, clinging to the shaft of her spear as another dragon-sized head attempted to swallow her whole and instead buried its jaws into the neck she had impaled.

She gripped the spear with her left hand and willed it to increase its size, extending through the monstrous neck before calling her second favorite melee spear in her right hand and thrusting it up through the second pair of jaws still hanging above her.

Gáe Bolga continued to lengthen from the thrust and began to branch out into dozens of thorns, filling and killing the hydra head. Finally, the extending Ascalon penetrated all the way through the other terrible neck, and instantly her dragon-spear swelled out from its center to become a massive discus that lopped off the entirety of the monstrous neck from its inside.

Her sun fire burned it before it could regenerate.

Ascalon snapped back into its original shape while Gáe Bolga’s many barbs erupted through the second head before retracting its claws and becoming a normal seven-pointed spear. All the while, her divine aura annihilated multitudes of smaller heads.

I have to be faster!

She disregarded gravity and flew up into the air under her own power as the remains of the two dragon-sized heads began their descent to the ground far below.

Hope flew ever higher, but the dread hydra pursued her. She screamed at the abomination as she twisted and spun in the air, dizzying and entangling the heads following her rise through the air.

Her spears shot out and kept shooting out, but never left her hands, extending until she was wielding two fifty foot long blades from the original shafts of the spears.

She whipped around in the air with her spears, decimating the monsters as her blades sliced the air so fast as to be silent until sound caught up and the booms echoed across the battlefield.

Her solar fire burned bright as the trunk of the beast finally became visible through the carnage.

Her spears grew outwards, enlarging to terrific discs to deflect attacks and slice through her enemies. The heads fell away from her and she dropped the great discs to slice through more of them. She felt the warmth of the sun at her back and knew that her battle had cleared the atmosphere above the field to let in the sun. With her mother at her back, she called forth Gugnir, and held it up, channeling the energies of the sun.

Gugnir dropped. Down to the ground, through the spine of the dread hydra like lightning, she directed the fire of her soul, the fire of the sun, to pour through the monstrosity, annihilating it utterly.

Ascalon and Gáe Bolga returned to her hands and took the shape of giant fans. She directed the fire out into the battlefield. Hundreds upon hundreds of demons burned.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this sneak preview! There's more where this came from, and I hope to have it out soon! I'd love to hear your thoughts.